The Dreamworks production grossed $19.7 million from Friday to Sunday after opening on the same day as its U.S. debut, industry consulting firm Artisan Gateway said Tuesday. That's nearly $2 million more than it pulled in stateside.

Chinese audiences have demonstrated a keen interest in car-centric Hollywood fare, with Universal's "Fast and Furious 6" raking in $25.4 million in its first three days there in summer 2013, Artisan noted.

"Need for Speed" may have also benefitted from its presentation in 3-D, which remains a strong draw for Chinese viewers. And the film's star, Aaron Paul, is familiar to mainland audiences from his role on the TV drama "Breaking Bad," which is popular there.

Hopes were high on numerous fronts for "Need for Speed," a thrill-ride of a premise about street racing, overseen by Steven Spielberg, distributed by Disney and starring a man, Aaron Paul, coming off one of the most compelling TV shows in recent memory.

John Boorman has made a lot of tough-nosed, violent and demanding films, including the 1967 film noir "Point Blank" with Lee Marvin, the Oscar-nominated 1972 thriller "Deliverance," starring Burt Reynolds and Jon Voight, and "Excalibur," the visceral 1981 dramatic fantasy based on King Arthur...

In its own disturbing, slithery way, the train-wreck watchable melodrama "Maps to the Stars" is as much a horror show as any that the film's director, David Cronenberg, has helmed over his long and provocative career.